Tag Archives: Five Country Conference

As reported before (http://blog.abhinav.com/new-zealand-and-australia-into-fingerprints-sharing-agreement/), the immigration authority of Australia has started exchanging and sharing the fingerprinting information with the land of Kiwis. The step has been taken in order to present the arrival of undocumented workers and applicants to barge into the country. Also, the step would prevent applicants make use of fake travel documents while traveling between both the countries.

Also, is reports are to be believed, this policy is likely to expand to other nations like US, UK and Canada as a part of what is called as the Five Country Conference (FCC). Also, this will help the immigration authorities find out those people who are resifting in the nations under the refugee status.

Refugees hardly have the correct documents. In addition, they lack apt identification papers, which confuse the immigration authorities to know about their immigration status and country of origin. Under the policy, the information would not be shared with anyone out of the nations who are a part of FCC policy.

This information would further be used to gather all the biometric knowledge about people who would be suspected to have their connection with false or undocumented status. Also, those suspected to hold relations with the crime world would be scrutinized too.

NZ has confirmed that it has almost 4,7000 fingerprints present on the database, which would further be shared countries in FCC policy. The step would prevent illegal immigration in future in a major way.

In the coming days, it would be harder for failed asylum seekers in Australia to claim refugee status further in New Zealand, since both the countries have recently signed a memorandum to share fingerprints of the refuge seekers.

Australia and New Zealand agreed to bond into the memorandum during the ongoing Five Country Conference, in London. The conference consisted of immigration agencies from countries viz. the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States. This new measure would help the immigration agencies of both the countries checking fingerprints information.

Thus, in the future when people will apply for refugee status in the Kiwi land, the immigration officials would compare their fingerprints to those which were taken in Australia, given the same people sought asylum in the country. If the fingerprints do not match at all, no further checks will be done or the person may be considered for the asylum status. But, if the fingerprints match, further checks, such as if the person has tried to seek asylum in Australia, would be carried out. Seeking asylum status in the second country before applying for the same in the New Zealand is not acceptable.

The Kiwi Immigration Minister said that sharing the fingerprints between the two countries would help the immigration officials determine the identity of the people. This would also help the officials to carry out the immigration procedures more efficiently.

For more information on New Zealand immigration, contact an Immigration and visa Consultant!